Posts Tagged ‘interviews’

Share this:

Visual effects in games intrigue me – they contribute so much to the flavour of a character or an experience but often they’re at their best when you’re not consciously registering them – they need to complement and harmonise and blend… In a game like League of Legends [official site] they need to communicate character, telegraph attacks, fit in with the established vocabulary of more than a hundred other champions and let the designers further customise them to create themed skins. Jason Keyser, a visual effects artist at Riot who has been working on champs like newcomer Camille explained to me just a little of what his work entailed while he was over for League Fest earlier this year: Read the rest of this entry »

Share this:

Rhythm action beetle adventure-coaster Thumper [official site] is one of those elegant games with great core mechanics. I think a lot of people have been commenting on how it’s made them feel or on the slickness of the interactions, but I wanted to zero in on the look of the game. It’s this pared down bio-metallic thing, somewhere between a heavy metal album cover and a chrome-infused minimalist bar which ends up at sleek but unsettling. To delve deeper into Thumper’s aesthetic I spoke to Brian Gibson, the man behind the game’s art about colour, speed, focal point trickery and more!

As with all our art-focused features, just click on the individual images for a larger version:

Share this:

A quote which stuck with me from GDC was Torn Banner’s studio president saying he wanted the magic spells in Mirage: Arcane Warfare [official site] to feel like “throwing bricks at people’s heads” and not like using pixie dust. A significant part of creating that difference will lie in how the Chivalry spiritual successor uses art and animation so I’ve asked members of the art team to explain how that works as well getting bonus insights into how the aesthetic of the game works more generally.

Weighing in on the discussion are Darin Walsh (UI and effects artist), Brandon Phoenix (technical artist), Jason Lavoie (environmental artist) and Dylan Brady (character artist). Nearly all of the images have larger versions so just click on them for a closer look.

Share this:

Overcooked [official site] deposited me into a frantic multiplayer kitchen desperately churning out tomato soup and attempting (unsuccessfully) to keep anything from catching fire while I was at Rezzed earlier in the year. By contrast, I watched perfect strangers strategise burgers – BURGERS! – perfectly on a galleon which rearranged the cooking surfaces every few seconds. The daft joy and urge to chat with teammates is firmly rooted in its local co-op play. You’re yelling for clean plates, wondering where that onion has gone or zipping across the space to prevent a conflagration.

But how did the developers encourage that positive co-op experience? Why is the “onion moment” so important? And what’s the climate like out there for local co-op PC gaming? We asked Phil Duncan, co-founder of Overcooked studio, Ghost Town Games.

Share this:

When I last played Warframe it was very much a vanilla space ninjas game. Just over a year later and there are still space ninjas but they sit alongside extras like tradeable space puppies. The player activity has been extensive too – there are user-created clan dojos so big the developers have had to add teleport functions to the game to make them navigable. As I write this it’s at number ten in the Steam top games list with 16,382 people playing right now. It’s also about to get wings.

In Warframe you play as one of the Tenno, an ancient warrior race who must don exo-armour (the titular warframes) to fight militarised clones called the Grineer. In the latest update, Archwing, players will be able to use new augments to allow their warframes to fly and fight in the vacuum of space. To find out how the Archwing update will work I spoke to Steve Sinclair – creative director of Warframe developer Digital Extremes.

Share this:

War of the Vikings, Paradox Interactive’s sequel to the gritty and gruesome War of the Roses, is about to receive its first expansion, a relatively modest addition that adds one new class: the Shieldmaiden. Executive producer Gordon Van Dyke, a veteran of multiplayer development who can trace his history back to some of the early Battlefield games, says it’s an opportunity to not only shake up the way the game is played and the patterns that players are falling into, but that it might also be a chance to challenge a few assumptions about gender.

At Paradox’s annual convention in January, Van Dyke spoke to me about his plans to introduce women warriors to the game and how it was important to him that they be dressed in realistic, practical gear rather than sporting the tired trope of stylised “boob armour,” the sort of curvy breastplates and chainmail bikinis that have plagued video games for decades. He explained how this expansion is his chance to make good on his ambition, why there should be women warriors in his game and how he relishes a chance to challenge some of gaming’s sexist conventions.

Share this:

I’m halfway through a tutorial on Aurora’s vast wiki. It’s 3375 words long, and it’s talking me through how to create a new galaxy in the 4X science fiction strategy game. I’m at the point of choosing my ‘Main Empire Theme’, and there are over 60. Canadian? Tolkein? Ancient Egypt? Demonic Realm? I scroll through and settle on Welsh. I skip ahead and hit Create Game.

At which point a galaxy forms, with suns, planets and moons, and then that galaxy’s races are born and placed, and then I’m in. I look at my own race, the Terrans. My xenophobia stat is 75. My ideal temperature is 14.00. One of my leaders is called Cadlywydd Gofod Isabella Walters.

Aurora is most commonly described as ‘Dwarf Fortress in space’, and this is why. I spoke to Steve Walmsley, who has been working on Aurora in his spare time for the past nine years. He talked to me about his boardgame inspirations, enabling roleplay and After Action Reports, and what the future holds for his game.Read the rest of this entry »